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THE GRAMMATICALIZATION OF BIPARTITE RECIPROCAL MARKERS IN

HEBREW

ABSTRACT

Grammaticalization is generally viewed as a diachronic process of: lexical > grammatical and

grammatical > more grammatical (Meillet 1912; Kuriłowicz 1965/1975). This paper deals

with the grammaticalization of bipartite reciprocal markers (BRMs) in Hebrew as a striking

example of a process whereby lexically meaningful morphemes are gradually emptied of their

content and become "function" elements (i.e. reciprocal pro-Nouns), forming an evolutional

continuum from a less grammaticalized (i.e. less fossilized) category into a more

grammaticalized one (i.e. that of BRMs). It is argued here that Hebrew is notable in that its

BRMs demonstrate a less advanced stage of grammaticalization than their counterparts in

many languages worldwide.

1. INTRODUCTION

In Hebrew, as in many languages worldwide, the conventionalized (i.e., grammaticalized)1

representation of mutual events involves a periphrastic construction featuring bipartite

reciprocal markers (henceforth BRM construction). The reciprocal markers are

grammaticalized pro-Nouns (distinct from canonical pronouns) representing the co-

participants in the mutual event. The paired pro-Nouns are derived from the same semantic

and morphosyntactic category, and some of them retain certain characteristics of simple

1 Although the concept of grammaticalization is an old one, going back to the beginning of Indo-European linguistics and the work of Bopp and Humboldt, Antoine Meillet (1912/1926) is credited with coining the term. The "classical" definition most frequently cited today is that of Jerzy Kuryłowicz ("The Evolution of Grammatical Categories", Diogenes 51, (1965), reprinted in his Esquisses Linguistiques, vol. II, Munich: Fink, 1975, p.52): "Grammaricalization consists in the increase of the range of a morpheme advancing from a lexical to a grammatical, or from a less grammatical to a more grammatical, status, e.g. from a derivative formant to an inflectional one". In the last three decades there has been a great reawakening of interest in grammaticalization theory.

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nominals. Cognitively, both of them are pro-subjects, as they take alternate roles in the

reciprocal relationship, but formally, one of the co-participants is backgrounded and typically

appears in the object position. Although the antecedent (i.e., the first reciprocal pro-Noun) is

associated with the subject-argument, it tends to remain close to the reciprocant (i.e. the

second reciprocal pro-Noun), instead of appearing in subject position or adjoined to it.

In modern European languages, BRM-constructions generally consist of two elements

from the same nominal domain, most significantly quantifiers ('one', 'each') and alterity

expressions ('other'), e.g. English each other and the less frequent one another. BRM-

constructions are also prevalent in many Semitic languages, notably in Akkadian, Syriac,

Neo-Eastern Aramaic2, Amharic,3 and most prominently in Hebrew through its various

diachronic layers. However, compared to very many languages where BRMs are employed,

Hebrew BRMs are noteworthy in that they demonstrate a less advanced stage of

grammaticalization.

In what follows, we shall analyze the structure and grammaticalization of three BRM-

constructions in Hebrew, the first containing numeral nouns: … lit. 'one) משנהו/השני... אחד

second'); the second featuring a human-denoting pronoun in antecedent position and a term

denoting kinship/fellowship in reciprocant position: חברו... אחד ;אחיו/רעהו ...איש (lit. 'man …

his companion/brother; one … his friend'); and a third construction featuring demonstrative

pronouns:. זה... זה . (lit. 'this … this', i.e. 'this one … this one'). Interestingly, in Hebrew

(crucially in Modern Hebrew), BRMs can co-occur also with lexical reciprocals appearing in

the templates of נפעל and התפעל, e.g.:

זה בזה להתחרותאוהבים הם

2 For references, see A. D. Rubin, Studies in Semitic Grammaticalization [Harvard Semitic Studies 57] (Winona Lake, Indiana :Eisenbrauns 2005), pp. 22–23. 3 See G. Goldenberg, "'Oneself', 'one's own' and 'one another' in Amharic", in Studies in Semitic Linguistics (Jerusalem: Magness, 1998), pp. 384-402 [reprinted from A.S. Kayne (ed.), Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau, Wiesbaden 1991, pp. 531-549].

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They like to compete with each other

אחד עם השני)ה(להתווכח הם לא מפסיקים

They never stop arguing with each other

Since the post-Biblical era, grammaticalized BRMs have played an increasingly prominent

role in encoding mutual events in Hebrew, apparently as a result of paradigmatic changes in

the verbal system, most crucially in the grammatical functions of התפעל and ,נפעל which

conventionalized as verbal templates encoding the passive, instead of conveying the

"classical" meanings of middle-reflexive.4

2. THE GRAMMATICALIZATION OF BRMs WITH NUMERAL NOUNS

האחד... האחד .2.1 (lit. 'the one … the one')

In this repetitive construction, attested in Biblical Hebrew only once, the antecedent and

reciprocant are both represented by אחד ('one') in masculine singular and with a definite

article. This construction occurs exclusively with the object marker את intervening between

the two identical elements, e.g.:

ו כ י דו ח א ת־ה ד א ח א ה

And they hit one another (Sam 2, 14:6)

4 For example, whereas in Biblical Hebrew reciprocity is generally encoded using נפעל (and less frequently חדיו י often in conjunction with ,(התפעל , e.g. ,נועצו יחדיו/נועצים Mishnaic Hebrew tends to employ a periphrastic construction containing a BRM, e.g. בזה/נוטלים עצה זה מזה . And similarly in expressing reflexivity: Biblical Hebrew commonly employs נפעל /התפעל , while Mishnaic Hebrew employs the periphrastic construction with the reflexive pronoun עצם, e.g. התחלה vs. נחבא ;עשה עצמו חולה vs. החביא עצמו. See: א ולשון חכמים לשון מקר, בנדויד' א

487 - 486, )1971, תל אביב: דביר(

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Babylonian Aramaic features a comparable construction in which the phrasal independence of

the elements gradually eroded, and the determiner of the second was omitted and reanalyzed

as part of a condensed adverbial expression, yielding יאהדד ('mutually') – a fusion of א- ('on')

י- plural suffix + (one') חד + ('one') חד + . In the following example, the doublet חדא... חדא

('the-one …the-one') co-occurs with the condensed expression יאהדד , e.g.:

יאהדד י פרסה וקא קפד חדא לחדא ובין

And between one and the other there are a hundred parasangs, and they are strict about

each other (Bali, Qid. 71b)

That Aramaic expression is the origin of the common Modern Hebrew adjective הדדי

('mutual'), e.g. זיקה הדדית ('mutual relation') and the adverbial expression באופן הדדי ('in a

mutual way/mutually'). Literary Hebrew sometimes employs the Aramaic form itself, which

can co-occur with the common BRMs such as זה... זה , as shown in the following example:

יאהדד ם בהרמוניה ואפילו מושפעי זה לצד זההם חיים

They live side by side in harmony and are even mutually influenced (by one another)

(Ha'aretz 9.4.08)

Clearly, the reciprocal construction involving a repetition of the numeral אחד, as well as the

Modern Hebrew construction השני … אחד )ה( ('the one … the other one'), both evolved from

the distributive use of these pronouns, which has been common in Hebrew since Biblical

times. E.g.:

ם ש  ר ג ד ח א ם ה ר... ש ז יע ל ד א ח א ם ה ש ו

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One's name is Gerom and the other's name (lit. 'the one's name') is ʾEliʿezer

(Ex 18:3-4)

משנהו... האחד 2.2 (lit. 'the one … his second, i.e. the second one')

This bipartite reciprocal construction is widespread in written and/or formal register of

Modern Hebrew. Here, the numeral nouns are not identical but sequential. Like the repetitive

numeral construction, it occurs only in third person singular masculine, e.g.:

האחד את משנהוהשלימו נהדר פסנתרניםשני ה

The two pianists complemented each other ('the one… his second') wonderfully

(Ha'aretz 25.4.10)

ה יהשני/השני ...אחת /אחד)ה( 2.3 (lit. '(the) one-M/F.S … the second-M/F.S')

This variant of the bipartite numeral construction is common in colloquial Modern Hebrew,

and, in contrast to the construction described in 2.2, can occur in the feminine singular, as in

the following example:

האחת עם השנייהכבר שנים שהן לא מדברות

For years, they haven't been speaking to each other

Both variants of this Modern Hebrew construction ( השני... אחד and משנהו... אחד ) may have

evolved as a calque of the German (or Yiddish) expression einander by mistakenly

associating the alterity word ander with its distributive meaning, 'the second one'.5 But, in

my view, it could equally have evolved through an internal process of reanalyzing אחד as a

5 See. A. Kaminka, "מדור לשוננו לעם תכז ,"אחד את השני (Linguistics column) Ha'aretz 20.10. 1943. I thank Mrs. Ronit Gadish, academic secretary of the Academy of Hebrew Language, for pointing out this reference.

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cardinal numeral (אחד as opposed to שניים) and pairing it with the ordinal number השני, as

frequently happens in spoken language, and can also be seen in the case of מצד שני... מצד אחד ,

which logically should be מצד אחר... מצד אחד ('on one hand … on the other hand').

Like the classical, essentially Aramaic, construction of חד )א+ (חד )א ), this modern

construction is basically a reinterpretation of the distributive construction widespread in

Modern Hebrew, e.g.:

אוכל צרפתיאוהב והשני אוכל מזרחיאוהב האחד. מהם אוהב אוכל אחר כל אחד

Each of them likes a different [kind of] food. One likes Oriental food and the other (lit.

the second one) likes French food

3. GRAMMATICALIZATION OF TERMS DENOTING 'MAN' PAIRED WITH

KINSHIP/FELLOWSHIP TERMS

In this construction, the antecedent position is occupied by the noun אישה/איש ('man'/'woman'),

and the reciprocant is represented by the construct noun רעות/- רע- ('friend of', 'fellow of'), or in

Mishnaic Hebrew (probably due to Aramaic influence), by the synonymous lexeme חבר-

-חברת/ .6 Alternatively, the reciprocant can be אחות/- אחי- ('brother of'/'sister of'), a construction

common in Biblical Hebrew. The reciprocant is obligatorily inflected with a possessive suffix

in the third person singular that agrees with the antecedent in gender (i.e. 'his friend/fellow',

'her friend/fellow'), while the antecedent ה(איש( '(wo)man' is deprived from morphosyntactic

properties as an autonomous participant, significantly it is deprived from definite article and

6 Reciprocal markers which evolved through a semantic bleaching of the words 'fellow', 'brother', 'relative/kin' and similar terms are also evidenced in other languages, e.g. Welsh, some African and indigenous Mesoamerican languages (cf. N. Evans, "Reciprocal Constructions: Towards a Structural Typology". In: E. König and V. Gast (eds.). Reciprocals and Reflexives: Cross-linguistic and Theoretical Explorations, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter 2008, pp. 51-52, 55), and notably also in Akkadian, which uses an expression that repeats the word ahu “brother” to convey reciprocity (cf. W. von Soden, Akkadisches Handwörterbuch. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1965: §43).

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case assignment (i.e. the case marking, by a preposition or genitive suffix, precedes the

reciprocant).7 In this construction, as in all Hebrew BRM-constructions, the verb obligatory

appears in the plural. This follows from the fact that the nominal bipartite expression is

grammaticalized and reanalyzed as a BRM construction rather than as an expression

consisting of two independent nouns. E.g. in Biblical Hebrew:

ו ר יאמ הוו ע ל־ר יש א ים א נ ב ה ל נ ב ל ה נ ב ה

And they said to one another: Come, let us make bricks (Gen 11:3)

ו ל־תונ יוא ח ת־א יש א א

Do not swindle one another (Lev 25:14)

And in Mishnaic Hebrew:

רויאיש את חבומכין

And they are hitting one another (Suk 4:4)

In the initial stage of grammaticalization – though there are already signs of paradigmaticity,

especially in the antecedent ('each'), which obligatorily occurs as איש ('man')8 in the singular –

the semantic bleaching is not yet advanced, and the literal meaning is fairly transparent. When

the construction is used literally, the second argument can be represented by other elements,

which can in fact occur simultaneously, as in the following example, where אחיו 'his brother',

7 Syntactically, the antecedent in the BRM-construction is an appendix, or extra element which does not belong to the thematic structure of the clause. 8 Other synonyms are typically excluded, e.g. גבר, אדם .

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his kinsman' co-occur as reciprocants though in this particular case' קרובו his friend' and' רעהו

the meaning of הרג 'kill' blocks a reciprocal meaning):

ו ג ר ה וו רב ת־ק יש א א הו ו ע ת־ר יש א א יו ו ח ת־א יש־א א

And each (lit. man) kill his brother, his friend and his relative (Ex 32:27)

As is well known, metaphorical language use is often responsible for desematicization, and

hence grammaticalization. This explains why this construction, involving human and

kinship/fellowship terms, can refer to animate but non-human entities, namely animals, e.g.

יש א ו יו ח ון א ק ח ד א י ל

None [of the locusts] is pushing the other (lit. 'a man … his brother') (Joel 2:8)

and also to parts of animals, as in the following examples:

יהו ח א יש־ב קוא ב ד י

[The Leviathan's scales] are joined to one another (lit/ 'man to his brother') (Job 41:9)

ן ת י ו ו ת ב ם ר את ת ב י הוו ע את ר ר ק ו ל ר ת יש־ב א

And he cleaved them [the animals] in half, and laid each half against the other

(Gen 15:10)

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A further stage in the semantic bleaching of the component elements אחותה/אחיו... אישה /איש

('man/woman … his-brother/her-sister') is manifest in the reference to inanimate entities, such

as the curtains of the Sanctuary:

ת ר ב ח יעת ר ש י מ ח הו חת ל־א ה א ש א

And the five curtains are bound each to the other (Ex 26:3)

However, in semi-grammaticalized occurrences of the construction, the antecedent (i.e. the

subject argument) can be a full lexical noun – rather than איש ('man'), which is the

grammaticalized (desemanticized) pro-Noun – for example, it can be the name of an animal,

e.g.:

ים י ת־א א ים י ו צ ש ג יר ופ ע ש או ר ק הו י ע ל־ר ע

And the wild-cats shall meet with the jackals, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow

(Isaiah 34:14)

This also happens with inanimates, as in the following two examples from Mishnaic Hebrew,

where the antecedent position is not occupied by אחד (the counterpart of Biblical איש), but by

the nouns ספינה ('ship') and עצים ('beams'), respectively. However, the alterity word is already

encoded by the grammaticalized lexeme חבר- 'fellow/companion' (counterpart of Biblical רע)

in its possessive form, reflecting a decrease in semanticity and an increase in grammaticality:

מספינה לחברתה

From one ship to the other (lit. 'to its fellow-F.S') (Shab. 11:5)

לחברו) עצים(פצים בין

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Between one beam and another (lit. 'between beams to its fellow-M.S') (Shab. 7:7)

Interestingly, in the second of these examples, does not agree in number with its ('fellow') חבר

antecedent עצים ('beams'), which indicates clearly that the second component of the BRM

construction has already undergone grammaticalization.

A more advanced stage of grammaticalization is evident in the combination of a numeral

noun ( אחת/אחד ) in the antecedent position and a fellowship term in the reciprocant position, as

is manifested in the construction רעותה... האחת /אחת (lit. 'one-F.S … her friend/companion-

F.S'), e.g. in Modern Hebrew:

טוב יותר אחת את רעותהאנחנו הנשים מבינות

We women understand each other better (lit/ 'one … her companion-F.S.')

(Ha'aretz 7.3.10)

Yet it is noteworthy that, with inanimate entities, the literal meaning of the construction's

component elements is still quite transparent, and as a result, a metaphorical

(anthropomorphized) reading is available, as shown in the following example, in literary

Modern Hebrew:

האחת לתחום רעותהיש שם מרפסות שחודרות

There are porches there that penetrate each into the other's space (lit. 'one into the space

of its companion'). (Ha'aretz, 27.8.03)

A mixed bipartite construction of numeral and companionship term is already attested in

Babylonian Aramaic, in the construction חד לחברה (lit. one to his friend) e.g.:

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חד לחברהאמר לה

One said to the other (lit. 'to his companion') (Ber 18b.14)

4. GRAMMATICALIZATION OF DEMONSTRATIVES

This kind of BRM is basically an inheritance from Mishnaic Hebrew. It is also attested

(infrequently) in Biblical Hebrew, in the expression זה אל זה (‘to each other’), though this

construction still retains its essentially distributive meaning, e.g.:

ש ח ה ו ן נ ע י ה ה י ב ... ו ר לא־ק ה ו ל־ז ה א הז ל י ל ל־ה כ

And it was the cloud and the darkness … and this-one did not approach the other-one all

night (Ex 14:20)

ים ד ים עמ פ ר או... ש ר ק ה ל־ז ה א רז מ א ו

'Serafim standing-M.PL … and this-one called-M.S to the other-one (=each of them

called to the other) and said-M.S.' (Is 6:2-3)

The fact that the verbs ב ר א and (in the first example) ק ר appear in the (in the second) ק

singular – and not in the plural, to agree with the coordinated subject ן נ ע ה ש ח ה and with the ו

subject ים פ ר .clearly shows that these constructions are still understood as distributive – ש

That is, the verbs ב ר א and ק ר refer to each of the participants as role-players in a distributive ק

action (i.e. each was performing the denoted action).

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This construction consists of two identical demonstratives which in Mishnaic Hebrew

grammaticalized into reciprocal markers. It is commonly used also in Modern Hebrew,

usually in the masculine singular e.g., זה... זה :

זה מזהועל שלא נטלו עצה ... ארבעה דברים מתו בשביל

They died because of four things... And because they did not consult with each other

(Vayiq.R 20: 8)

And in Modern Hebrew, e.g.:

זה לצד זהבעבר חיו כאן יהודים וערבים

In the past, Jews and Arabs lived here side by side (lit. 'this one next to this one' )

However, the construction can also appear in the feminine singular, e.g.:

בזו אחר זובשבוע האחרון פרצו שרפות

This past week fires broke out one after the other

Accordingly, when referring to two sets of referents, the demonstratives can come in the

plural (though the default option, the masculine singular, is still available), e.g., in Mishnaic

Hebrew:

אלו את אלובזמן שמקצתן רואין

While a few of them see one another (lit. 'these ones … these ones') (Mak1:9)

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And similarly in Modern Hebrew:

אלו לאלוהילדים של שתי המשפחות קרובים מאוד

The children of the two families are very close to each other

As in the case of numerals, the immediate precursor of this BRM is the distributive use. That

is, its grammaticalization "chain" is: demonstrative > distributive > reciprocal. Below are

examples of the distributive construction:

Mishnaic Hebrew:

אומר וזה... אומר זה

This one says … and the other one (lit. 'this one') says (BM 1:1)

מתערביןאלו ואלו

Both these and these mingle (Yo 5:6)

Modern Hebrew:

אוהב מוסיקה קלסית וזהאוהב מוסיקה מודרנית זה

This one likes modern music and the other one (lit. 'this one) likes classical music.

5. MORPHOSYNTACTIC FEATURES OF INCOMPLETE

GRAMMATICALIZATION

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In many languages where BRMs are found, the semanticization of the bipartite expression

(i.e. the demotivation of its lexical meaning) takes place through a gradual condensation and

coalescence of the pro-Nouns – condensation and coalescence being typical syntagmatic

processes involved in grammaticalization.9 An example is English, where each other became

one phrase, as opposed to constructions where each and other are separate, e.g., they each

watched the other or each of them watched the other. In German, the entire bipartite

reciprocal complex, including the preposition, became a simplex expression, i.e., one single

morphosyntactic unit: miteinander (lit. with-each-other.) That is, the governing preposition

(or case marker) precedes the bipartite expression and is attached to it as a whole. Similarly in

Aramaic, most notably in Eastern Aramaic, where the grammaticalization of חד... חד ('one' …

'one') culminated in fusion and univerbalization, producing ḥe ('each other') and its

variants.10

In Hebrew, on the other hand, there has not yet been a complete loss of syntactic

flexibility, and the component elements still retain a certain degree of autonomy. Crucially,

most Hebrew BRMs can still be inflected for gender and number in agreement with the

participants involved. Furthermore, although Hebrew conforms to a gender-resolution rule

according to which agreeing elements with mixed controllers appear in the masculine (e.g.,

the boy and the girl are happy M.PL'), in reciprocal constructions, the' הילד והילדה שמחים

BRMs can take different genders when denoting human referents of different sexes (this

happens mostly, but not exclusively, in the colloquial register).11 For example:

זה את זו וזו את זהבלילה שכזה אהבנו

9 Cf. Ch. Lehmann, "Grammaticalization: Synchronic Variation and Diachronic Change", Lingua e Stile 20.3 (1985), p. 309. 10 For example, ˙oe in the Turoyo dialect; and ∞ in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic dialects, such as the dialect of Qaraqosh. For references see Rubin 2005, pp. 22-23. 11 Such "mixed gender" usage is frowned upon by linguistic "purists", e.g. מדריך הלשון לרדיו , שי' בנדויד וה' א) 1974ירושלים : רשות השידור( (Guide to the Language of Radio and Television) ולטלוויזיה , p. 183.

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On such a night we loved each-M.S other-F.S, and each-F.S other-M.S

(Israeli Song by Naomi Shemer)

Additionally, a notable feature of Hebrew BRMs is that the direct-object marker את or the

governing preposition is obligatorily interposed between the bipartite markers. More

remarkable are BRMs in which two case-markers, as well as a noun, appear between the

antecedent and the reciprocant. This is illustrated by the Biblical example below, where בחרב

('by the sword of'), as the first element in the genitive relation, is interposed between the

components of the BRM:

ם יה ב כ ר ו ים ו סוס ד ר י יו ח ב א ר ח יש ב וא

And horses and their riders will descend, each by the sword of his brother (Hag 2:22)

Similarly in Modern Hebrew, in the BRM-construction זה.. זה where only the reciprocant

appears in the genitive case, and is the one which refers to the possessor of the mutual object

:interposed between the two components of reciprocal expression ('his song') שירו

זה את שירו של זה שניהם יופיעו יחד וישירו

Both of them will perform together, and each will sing the song of the other

(Ha'aretz 9.11.10)

6. CONCLUSION

From a synchronic perspective, it appears that Hebrew BRM-constructions demonstrate a less

advanced stage of grammaticalization than their counterparts in many languages worldwide.

In the vast majority of these Hebrew constructions, the bipartite lexical components are

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conventionalized as reciprocal markers, and exhibit some additional conspicuous effects of

grammaticalization, such as decreased pardigmatic variability and increased syntagmatic

cohesion – yet the basic literal meaning is still transparent or motivated. From the

morphosyntactic perspective, this 'conventionalized' half-grammaticalization is manifest in

decreased grammatical productivity of the relevant components but without full

morphological degeneration. Finally, the grammaticalization of BRMs in Hebrew shows that

grammaticalization process can stop at any point of development and does not necessarily

proceeds to the zero point (e.g. of univerbalization) as is often claimed in the literature.